


The Tsar's Lover

by theferociousbeast



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Historical, Bottom Dean, Bullying, Dom/sub Undertones, Extramarital Affairs, Gentle Dom Castiel, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Sub Dean, Top Castiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 10:47:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3206429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theferociousbeast/pseuds/theferociousbeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is a Russian faith healer notorious for his promiscuity. In the Romanov family's desperation to heal their only heir, Tsar Bogdan (Dean) comes to him for help. Castiel finds himself healing more than the Tsar's son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Man Of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Dean is referred to as Bogdan or Danya throughout this story.  
> Words to know for this chapter: vozok - a closed carriage used by royalty. tovarishch - comrade. Schastlivogo Rozhdestva - Merry Christmas. spasibo - thank you.

Castiel had a gift.

His boyish charm was all it seemed to be as a youth. Though most Russians were illiterate, he failed to form coherent sentences in speech, as well. His movements were spastic and jerky, lacking all of the grace his name seemed to hold.

Because of his inability to function as a normal human being, he was often excluded from the games played by other children in his neighborhood. It would have been nice if he had the luxury of letting this go unnoticed.

But Castiel was not dumb so much as he was jumbled. He was aware that he was different. He was aware that he was unwanted. It is not so hard to realize that one is not cared for when mocked by others and ultimately without a friend.

Despite how he was treated, Castiel never tried to get even or pick fights. Instead, he lived with his insecurities and self hatred, burying his hands deep in his pockets as he did the thoughts in his mind. He looked down as he walked, shoes scuffing along cobblestone roads.

No, he had no real gift, not as a child. He was only attractive until he opened his mouth to speak. He was only nice when all one had to notice of him was the disheveled mop of curly raven hair atop his head, eyes blue like the water in villages that were not yet industrialized – waters cold and free of waste, clear as the sky when smog wasn’t an issue. All of this beauty set against a canvas of smooth flesh, tanned despite Russia’s bitter cold, the sun often hiding in fear of melting the pure white snow. Castiel understood. When the snow melted, it turned to sludge, brown and watery. No one liked snow when it wasn’t clean.

He was born on January 9, 1869. He had guessed that it was probably snowing then, too. But maybe the sun had come out to welcome him, and when the snow turned to sludge, so did he.

So he took comfort instead, in knowing that St. Gregory of Nyssa, whose feast day was on the same day as Castiel’s baptism, was also lacking. He lacked the administrative ability of his brother Basil or the contemporary influence of Gregory of Nazianzus, but he was philosophical and made important contributions to Christian doctrines, and most importantly, he was liked well enough to become a Saint.

Perhaps it is unfair to suggest that he was cared for by no one of import.

One particular December as a boy, Castiel had gone off to the Christmas market to buy presents for his parents with his allowance. In waiting to cross the road, a vozok and its horses rushed by, wheels flinging sludge onto the small child's front.

He didn't mind so much that his clothes had been dirtied, but the ice was cold and inconvenient, to say the least.

But before he had managed to attempt his way across the road again, a boy his age ran by almost as quickly as the horses before, and quickly began removing Castiel's damp coat from his shoulders. He shut his eyes tight and remained stiff, waiting for the robbery and the beating to be over with. But the beating never came, and his wet coat was replaced with a nicer one, warm and dry.

He opened his eyes to find himself looking directly into bright green ones, belonging to a boy with a freckled face and a charming smile. He was wearing Castiel's coat in place of the one he had given away.

“I saw what happened, _tovarishch_. I am going home now, but you will stay warm in my coat. _Schastlivogo Rozhdestva,_ ” the boy greeted, leaving before Castiel could work up the ability to tell him _spasibo._

Castiel couldn't have been more surprised, or better yet, _touched_. Here, this total stranger, had presented him with such kindness without expecting anything in return. He hadn't even allowed for an opportunity for his kindness to be repaid.

Castiel never forgot the boy.

He married at the age of eighteen, and he credited this luck to his good looks alone. The woman he married was three years his elder, and, at the time, most men marrying a woman of that age were 23-years-old. Perhaps this marriage was his gift.

Castiel and his wife, Praskovia Fyodorovna Dubrovina, had five children together. After the deaths of their two eldest sons, the couple was left with Dmitri, Varvara, and Maria. They were a beautiful family, and he accepted this gift.

One night, however, after five years of marriage, Castiel had a vision of the Virgin Mary in his sleep, and was blindly led by faith to leave behind his family and spend several months in a monastery, devoting himself to God.

His experience with religion and those he met consequently led him to give up drinking, smoking, and eating meat. He instead became involved with the medical field, his focus primarily on faith healing.

After leaving the monastery, he traveled the country, healing the ill kin of royalty. He placed his hands upon broken bodies, uttered prayers in an incoherent dialect of Siberian, and the diseased and injured woke feeling rejuvenated.

As Castiel gained popularity for his work, he began to pity humanity, for once they crucified the Son of God for demonstrating the same miracles as he did now, but now he was praised, now he profited. But he smiled, and he continued, because this was his real gift, and God would not have given it if he had not intended it to be used. Perhaps humanity was being given a second chance.

Because of his need to travel for business, Castiel set up an herbal medicine shop in a caravan. Various herbs hung from the wooden rafters to dry, and tonics were stored in amber glass bottles. The wood planked floors were covered with ornate rugs woven with yarn of deep reds, oranges, purples and blues, the cheerful colors failing to mask the boldness of their hues. A small kitchen stood opposite this apothecary, and at the end of the trailer was his bed, hidden away from the public with velvet curtains.

It was not uncommon for Castiel to tie off these drapes and welcome a woman into his sleeping quarters. He traded his navy habit, a gown worn by monks, for a loose blouse of white cotton, cut to expose the upper part of a toned chest. He had given up drinking, smoking, and eating meat. But he had never given up his desire for the warm flesh of those who sought his aid.

It was no different when Tsar Bogdan of Russia came to him. The Tsar’s only heir, a boy by the name of Alexei, had hemophilia, a disease that was common amongst royalty. Doctors knew not how to fix him. Castiel almost laughed for them having even tried – nothing made artificially could heal the beings who were made by nature.

“I have no more sons. If Alexei dies, when I die, this is the end of the Romanov family. I will become a disappointment to my family for having not produced another male, I…” Bogdan’s voice trailed off. Castiel had given him vodka, while he himself sipped on tea, the two favorite beverages of Russians.

When Castiel set a strong hand upon the Tsar’s shoulder, thumb rubbing reassuringly into the fabric of his suit, he looked up suddenly, as if having only just realized he was not alone.

The icy eyes that peered up at him were enough. It was the nickname that set him over the edge.

“Danya…” Castiel said softly, a small smile full of warmth spreading across his face between the unkempt hair of his beard and mustache. “God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Fear not, the child will not die.”

The Tsar lost what strength he had kept in the marine’s uniform at home, then, and moved in closer to the man beside him. His eyes fluttered shut as his lips slowly met those of the holy healer, body moving of its own accord. Castiel hadn’t needed to move at all.

He hungered for the flesh of a man that night. A man whose name was God’s Gift.


	2. The Miracle Worker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Tsar may be in charge of Russia, but behind closed doors, Castiel knows he's in charge of the Tsar.

By the time Castiel came to the Romanovs, they were living fifteen miles from the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, and instead had taken up residence at Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo.

They had moved two years prior, after the soldiers of the Imperial Guard opened fire upon unarmed demonstrators who intended to present a petition to the Tsar.

Alexander Palace was Bogdan’s birthplace, as well as the former residence of his parents and their predecessors. The Tsar’s father had died thirteen years before Castiel’s arrival at the palace, but his mother continued to stay at the palace for visits until Alexandra became tired of her.

Under Bogdan’s reign, the former two-story ballroom was remodeled into two new rooms – the Tsar’s study, and what was referred to as the ‘maple room.’ The changes Alexandra made to the palace involved a shift in style to Art Nouveau, something Bogdan absolutely hated. Every single piece of furniture and woodwork in the maple room was carved out of maplewood. A maple balcony sailed across the entire room, cabbage roses carved into the delicate wood and inset with leaded glass panels to reflect the light as it shone through. The maplewood that was used was, apparently, of a special variety that had to be immersed in water for seven years in order to be shaped into the serpentine fashion of Art Nouveau. Bogdan couldn’t have cared less.

Castiel’s first impression of Bogdan’s study was that it resembled a ship. Whereas the wood in Alexandra’s room was maple, her husband’s room had its walls and ceilings made up of polished mahogany set with bright brass fittings. This room had a balcony, too, with a mahogany staircase that wrapped around a built-in sofa and fireplace leading up to it. In the center of the room was a round table surrounded by chairs in the Chippendale style named for the English cabinetmaker. He often played pool in this room; Castiel often read.

More than the atrocious maple in Alexandra’s room, Castiel hated two pieces of art in Bogdan’s study: One, a marble bust of his wife that sat upon the fireplace mantel. The other, a study done by Friedrich Kaulbach for the Tsar’s favorite painting, a portrait of the Tsarina that was hung in the formal reception room.

Castiel was aware that it was common for royalty to commission portraits of themselves or other members of their family. It was a form of self-preservation that had been around for centuries. But when the Tsar had locked the door to his study and was being screwed into the smooth leather of the sofa on his balcony by the faith healer, he had to admit that staring into the hollow marble eyes of the man’s wife was a little more than nauseating.

The room Castiel spent the most time in was Tsarevich Alexei’s bedroom. The boy slept in a crib next to a large stand full of religious images. The cabinets in the base of the stand contained more images, as well as candles and books. The child looked as heavenly as this display, with smooth, golden hair and bright eyes that looked full of purpose. But each time he so much as stumbled, his body became riddled with bright purple and green welts.

The family had tried to keep the disease a secret, in hopes that the boy would be cured. Dealing with a sickly child and covering up an illness, however, took its toll on the reigning couple. Alexandra, having had the gene for hemophilia, felt responsible for her son’s sickness, as well as anxious whenever they had visitors. Bogdan himself seemed to age three years in the span of one.

On the first day of Castiel’s visit, he laid his hands upon the child and prayed for his well-being. The next day, Alexei was in good spirits. The miracles created by the healer’s hands and his words shocked everyone, and those who knew about the illness came to believe that his powers came from hypnotism, or aspirin, or that he had been drugging the boy with Tibetan herbs from a fraudulent medical practitioner. None of these things were relevant to Castiel. It was his faith in the Lord that brought mercy down upon the frail child.

The child slept less that day, and spent more time in his playroom instead. He socialized with his siblings and behaved as any young boy should.

Bogdan felt such a heavy burden lift from his shoulders in seeing his son, his only heir, look so well. It had been three years, since the child’s birth, that the Tsar had worried over him, and these three years seemed at least a decade to the family.

As Castiel was led eagerly through the man’s dressing room and into his study, he saw the strength and vitality that the Tsar must have had as a junior officer in the military before his reign. His emerald eyes, which looked at Castiel with such a desperate plea for help upon their first meeting, had brightened so significantly that the healer thought they rivaled the reflection of sunlight upon the sheets of leaded glass in the maple room.

It was in gazing upon this face closely for the first time, that Castiel came to feel as if it was not the first time.

He reached a strong hand up to hold the Tsar’s face, rubbing his thumb across the smooth, freckled skin of his cheek. The smile he received in return was kind, gentle, and welcoming. The man nuzzled into the hand against his cheek before taking the hand in his own and lowering it to plant a cautious kiss on the pad of Castiel’s thumb.

Whatever ideas of familiarity he had were quickly pushed to the back of his mind as he set to the task of romancing this beautiful man. The hopeful gleam in bright green eyes was soon taken over by dark pupils blown wide with lust, and the God-fearing man felt almost blasphemous as his heartbeat quickened against the hard chest of the Tsar, and a pair of chapped lips crashed hungrily against smooth ones that no longer quivered with worry.

As they parted, Castiel making quick work of unfastening a pair of black suspenders from Bogdan’s suit pants as he backed him up against the sofa, the Tsar mumbled a question against the flesh of the shorter man’s neck.

“How do you do it, Cas?”

Castiel smiled at the nickname, and pushed the jacket down over his lover’s shoulders. The question didn’t need to be elaborated on, for it asked two questions, both of which he was fully aware of without explanation. _How did you heal my son?_ and _How do you do this thing to me?_

Both parts of the one question were rhetorical, so he answered instead by slipping black buttons through the slits of wool trousers, sliding them down with the Tsar’s knit cotton drawers. Seeing the man like this, naked from the waist down and flesh so perfect and freckled, caused a faint blush to break out from Castiel’s chest to his cheeks.

So he disguised the sudden flush by kneeling, and pressing his face into the man’s smooth inner thigh, leaving a trail of soft kisses against the warm flesh.

“So beautiful, Danya,” he complimented, words barely audible, muffled against Bogdan’s skin. As he moved forward to tease the tip of the Tsar’s hardened penis with his tongue, the man’s knees began to quiver, and he reached back to grip the headrest of the sofa.

Bogdan may have been in control of some 125 million subjects, he may have been an officer in the military, and he may have regained some courage as his son regained his strength. But in this room, Castiel knew all too well that he was the real commander.

With a gentle, “stay still, Danya,” the faith healer gripped the base of the Tsar’s cock firmly, and trailed his tongue up its length, smiling at the slick sheen against pink flesh. He then took the head into his mouth, sucking with mild pressure, humming happily. Bogdan began to shake again, then, and Castiel looked up to find him biting his lower lip, chest rising and falling rapidly with quick breaths. He pulled off at this, only to lap at the slit once more, shaking his head while humming a disciplinary “mm-mm-mm.”

Bogdan stilled once more, sucking in a sharp breath in an effort to push down the moans that threatened to spill from his lips. Satisfied, Castiel took him in to the hilt, exploring his cock with his tongue as he sucked gently. The Tsar briefly imagined that the man at his feet was humming _Quasi una fantasia_ , or Beethoven’s _Moonlight Sonata_. He had to agree that the title was fitting. _Almost a fantasy._

But those thoughts were not fully realized, as the vibrations around him seemed to travel up his body, and a warm feeling began to settle in the pit of his stomach. His grip on the leather upholstery tightened, though he wanted desperately to thread his fingers into the mop of raven hair at his hip instead, and he did his best to utter out a warning.

“Castiel…Cas, I—I can’t,” he pleaded, voice cracking as he came closer to climax. But Castiel only smiled around the hardness, continuing to lick at the length through his song. And then the Tsar was white-knuckled, whimpering, and spilling his seed into the utterly magical mouth that enveloped his cock in such a nice, damp warmth. The feeling reminded him of a greenhouse, sticky with humidity, and he knew with as much certainty that words spoken by these lips could do more than make flowers grow.

As Castiel left the study, left Bogdan to sort out his thoughts and make himself presentable, the Tsar came to realize that it was not only the hands of the righteous man that could heal and perform miracles.


	3. The Profound Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel and the Tsar share a childhood memory, making it all the more clear as to why Dean (Danya) feels more for Cas than he ever has his own wife.

Alexandra was far from oblivious as to what went on in her husband’s study.

Castiel had begun to suspect that she watched them through the eyes of the marble bust carved in her likeness.

Apart from discussing it with her husband, however, the Tsarina was a benign force. It was no secret that the marriage was a struggling one. The royal family was tired and worried over their son’s sickness, and had been for three years now.

Because Alexandra blamed herself for the disease, and consequently the strain put upon her relationship with her husband and the feelings of neglect her elder children felt, she was in a position to believe that her husband’s affair was what both of them deserved.

Bogdan deserved happiness and pleasure, she thought. In seeing him happy, she felt happiness, as well. She, on the other hand, deserved her husband’s infidelity. She had caused so much pain in giving him only one heir, and an unhealthy one at that. If he could not be pleased by her, then she had to accept that someone else could.

She also believed that this was the least she could do for the holy healer. Her son was in good spirits, and when he started to sink, Castiel had the ability to bring him back up higher than before. Perhaps one day, Alexei would be well for good, and the Romanov family would go back to how they were before.

Castiel had also taken it upon himself to spend more time with the family’s daughters. He volunteered himself to play house with the girls, and hearing the high-pitched voice coming from the bearded man – clearly playing the role of wife or mother – was enough to forget that there was anything strange about this visitor. It had been a year since his arrival, and for once, it felt like no more than 365 days. He had assimilated into the lives of the royal family with relative ease, and as he grew more comfortable, the worries of all others were soothed.

Alexandra could not resent the man for bringing a sense of normalcy to their family, or at least as normal as the children could tell. And when she had begun to consider it, she was reminded of something her husband had told her one night in bed.

“Do you ever come across someone and find that it feels as though you have met before, but you can’t remember the details?” He had asked. “There’s something about Castiel. He just feels…familiar,” he added. Alexandra did not reply. It was a question she could not answer for him, but rather one he had to figure out on his own.

But still, these words stuck with her. If Bogdan was to discover that his lover had been a childhood friend, or a soul he knew in another life, she did not wish to release him from his job as Alexei’s aid. The idea held a certain sentimentality that warmed her to the core.

The Tsar did come to remember who Castiel was.

It was on a particular day in December, in which Castiel had taken the children to the Christmas market in St. Petersburg. They feasted upon sweet bread, apple cakes, and spiced cider. The man thought about his own children at home, and found he could not resist their pleas to indulge. They bought gifts for each other and their parents, a haul of dolls, scarves, loose leaf teas, and jewels for mother.

As the group ascended the steps into the vozok, he was reminded of a day much like this one from his own childhood. Suddenly he was a young boy, not so well off as the children now in his care. And as his present self peered out the opening in the carriage, he saw himself as a boy, standing on the other side of the road. And as the carriage passed by, the wheels kicked up sludge onto the front of his coat.

He could no longer see himself, but he knew what happened next. The boy with the brilliant green eyes and the excessive dusting of freckles across his cheeks returned, and gave Castiel his coat.

In the present, Castiel felt himself growing warmer.

He was lying with the Tsar that night, naked bodies flush against each other, the warmth a happily welcomed relief from the cold outside.

Castiel had just finished describing his day with the children when his mind trailed back to the memories of his past. He carded a hand through his lover’s hair mindlessly as he began to speak again.

“I remember a boy…Rather, I haven’t managed to forget him. I was going to the market as a child, and this boy came and gave me his coat when my own became muddied with dirty snow. I wasn’t aware of my feelings for men then, but perhaps that’s what started it all,” he recounted, smirking down at the man nuzzled into his neck. He had expected to feel a smile against his skin in response, but the Tsar was wide-eyed instead. Castiel shifted away to get a better view of him.

Eventually, Bogdan spoke. “I— I share this memory. It is vague for me, but I… I gave my coat to the boy without thinking. It had just felt like the right thing to do. It was nothing for me. But I looked upon his face, and in his bright blue eyes I saw such overwhelming shock that I became hurt.

The boy, it was clear, had never received such kindness before, at least not from other children. And I ran, because I wanted to do so much for him that I did nothing more at all.” He chuckled softly at this, remembering how he had kicked himself later for being so stupid. But he was merely a boy. He knew well that boys were not exactly thoughtful.

“You were that boy?” He asked finally, words barely louder than a whisper, his tone earnest. Castiel held him closer.

“I always imagined that you seemed familiar,” Castiel replied, eyes glossy with the formation of tears. He planted a kiss to the top of his lover’s head, then, and let out a long sigh. There were no words for the way how he was feeling, but part of it felt like relief, and the other felt like love.

“Now I feel like a fool. I did nothing for you, really, but you found your way back into my life, and with each touch of your hand, my pieces are being fitted together, and my son is becoming well, and the bond my family shares has become closer.” The taller man smiled then, and attempted to express his gratefulness with a trail of kisses from Castiel’s jaw to his collarbone.

“You and I do share a more profound bond.”

And he was right. Because the pieces of the Tsar that were being put back together were not of his family, but rather of himself. Then there was the piece that had been missing for so long, a piece that had perhaps been sacrificed in trying to live up to his father’s expectations to be a soldier and a leader. And this piece was not Alexandra, or the children, or the military, or the power he held over the entirety of Russia. The missing piece belonged to a man named Castiel, who came to heal the future Tsar, and ended up healing the current one in more ways than he thought imaginable. And now the missing piece melded with all of the others, tessellating just as their bodies did now.

They did share a more profound bond.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you have enjoyed this chapter of The Tsar's Lover! As always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated.


End file.
